Everything's coming up Terry:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
The race for cash has turned into a rout in the final days of the contest for Virginia governor, with front-runner Terry McAuliffe exponentially outraising Ken Cuccinelli II — particularly from companies that have legislative interests in Richmond.
At the same time, the race to succeed Cuccinelli (R) as attorney general has become a magnet for late donations as contributors from both parties scramble to participate in what appears to be the tightest matchup on Tuesday’s ballot.
For the two weeks before the election, Virginia law requires candidates to report all large donations within a day, providing nearly a real-time look at the flow of cash through the political spigots. At the top of the ballot, almost all of the money is flowing in one direction.
On Wednesday, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, McAuliffe (D) reported contributions of $510,000, with more than half that total coming in the form of in-kind donations from the state Democratic Party, the Sierra Club and a pair of labor unions.
For the same day, Cuccinelli reported raising just $12,000 — roughly 1/50th of McAuliffe’s haul. In the race overall, McAuliffe has now raised more than $35 million, nearly double Cuccinelli’s total. - Washington Post, 11/1/13
And that's not the only good news McAuliffe received today:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/...
Democrat Terry McAuliffe leads Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) in the Virginia gubernatorial race by 7 percentage points among likely voters, according to a new Christopher Newport University poll released Friday.
The poll found McCauliffe with 45 percent support of voters while Cuccinelli has 38 percent support among likely voters. For registered voters, McAuliffe leads by 43 percentage points while Cuccinelli has 36 percentage points. Libertarian candidate Robert Sarvis, meanwhile, has 10 percent support among both likely and registered voters, the poll found. The 7-point margin in McAuliffe's favor is the same as Christopher Newport University's Oct. 15 poll but two points lower for McAuliffe than when the university surveyed the race for its Oct. 8 poll.
Meanwhile, the poll also found that state Sen. Mark Obenshain (R) leads state Sen. Mark Herring (D) by a thin 2 percentage-point margin. That race has generally been tight with different polls showing either Herring or Obenshain ahead. - TPM, 11/1/13
The Christopher Newport University poll was conducted Oct. 25 to 30 by the school's Judy Ford Wason Center for Public Policy. They surveyed 1,185 registered voters and 1,038 likely voters. The total margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points. For likely voters the margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.
McAuliffe certainly has made the comeback story of the year:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
McAuliffe lost the Democratic primary for governor in 2009 after getting tagged early on as a fast-talking, partisan, carpet-bagging campaign operative who didn't really match up to Virginians' priorities.
"I got up the next day, dusted myself off and went right back out there," McAuliffe said during a recent interview with The Associated Press.
He also learned lessons from that defeat and used them to craft a campaign that, according to polls, may be on track to winning. If successful, he will break a long streak in state history. During the last nine governor's races, the party that controlled the White House at the time has always lost.
Should he win, McAuliffe partly can credit his own political skills.
His fundraising prowess and celebrity connections helped him raise enough money to beat back GOP efforts to tar him over giving White House access to political donors during Bill Clinton's presidency and investing with someone who later admitted to stealing the identities of terminally ill patients.
That talent for fundraising, combined with a go-for-the-jugular instinct, allowed him to paint Republican opponent Ken Cuccinelli as an ideologue too extreme for the swing-voting state. Virginia's attorney general, Cuccinelli attempted to block the federal health care law and sued a University of Virginia climate scientist under the state's anti-fraud laws.
McAuliffe alone is outspending Cuccinelli by a 25-to-1 margin on the TV airwaves this week. - Huffington Post, 11/1/13
President Obama will also be in Virginia this coming weekend to campaign for McAuliffe and fire up the base. Cuccinelli is actually pretty excited about Obama's visit:
http://www.politico.com/...
Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli is happy to have President Barack Obama in Virginia, saying it will draw attention to Obamacare and his opponent’s support for the law.
“We always welcome the president to Virginia and we’re happy to bring the focus to his policies and what [Democratic gubernatorial candidate] Terry McAuliffe plans to do with them in Virginia,” Cuccinelli said Friday on Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom.” “And how bad they are for Virginians, losing jobs and hurting our economy.”
Cuccinelli said that the president’s signature health care law has been central to the race, and that his upcoming campaign stop with McAuliffe this weekend will keep Obamacare in the mind of Virginia voters. - Politico, 11/1/13
I don't know if that's going to help Kenny boy. According to Real Clear Politics, you're losing this race because you're just too bat shit crazy for Virginia:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/...
Cuccinelli’s problem in a nutshell is this: The Old Dominion would probably vote for a candidate who had sued a professor at the University of Virginia over his climate science research. It would probably vote for a candidate who referred to homosexuality as unnatural. It would probably vote for a candidate who tried to limit no-fault divorce. It would probably vote for a candidate who covered up an exposed breast on the state seal. It would probably vote for a candidate who wasn’t sure if the president was born in the United States. It would probably vote for a candidate who told colleges and universities to strip protections for gays and lesbians.
What it won’t typically do is vote for a candidate who holds all of these positions, and is unapologetic in them. Truth be told, Virginia hasn’t been particularly fond of strident social conservatives for quite some time; Oliver North, Michael Farris, Mark Earley, and a host of other similar Republicans have met similar fates. The mold of a successful statewide Republican here has been John Warner, Jim Gilmore, and Bob McDonnell, all of whom would check most of the boxes on a conservative scorecard, but who also knew how to communicate those stances to your average suburban voter in a non-threatening way.
As for Terry McAuliffe, he doesn’t really fit the ideological mold for successful Virginia Democrats, although his business experience and his financial edge have allowed him to slide more into the mold of your average pro-business Virginia Democrat. And he’s hardly beloved. He’s averaging a negative-seven favorability. To put this in perspective, as Ben Tribbett points out, Mark Warner had a plus-31 favorable rating when he won by five points, while Tim Kaine had a plus-24 favorable rating when he won by six points.
Ken Cuccinelli is simply more conservative than the Virginia electorate will bear, and is conservative in all the wrong ways for the state. Unless there’s a major surprise next week, that will be the main takeaway from this election. - Real Clear Politics, 10/31/13
Even the conservative Washington Times is advising it's readers to not vote for Cuccinelli:
http://communities.washingtontimes.com/...
Fortunately, there is a third choice for Commonwealth voters: Robert Sarvis, a libertarian who merges economic progress with social tolerance. He has been polling almost unbelievably high for a third party candidate, which serves as a testament to widespread disgust with Cuccinelli and McAuliffe.
Virginia Republicans should support Sarvis not only because of Cuccinelli’s radicalism, but also because of his followers’ influence on GOP politics.
Earlier this year, a narrow band of hard-right activists gathered at the Republican Party of Virginia’s convention to nominate candidates for statewide office. Originally, the nomination was to be held via primary, which would have allowed the public to choose a nominee.
This also would have given moderate GOPers a fighting chance. If not for the brazenly undemocratic convention process, center-right Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling would likely be cruising to an easy win now.
The conservative wing wanted to flex their muscles, however, and they put up not only Cuccinelli, but an obscure minister named E.W. Jackson. He is after Bolling’s job, and has next to zero chance of getting it.
If the entire VA-GOP statewide ticket goes down to defeat, which includes State Senator Mark Obenshain, an antiabortion extremist who is running for attorney general, then a strong message will have been sent. This message will resonate with voters, donors, campaign strategists, politicians, and special interest groups alike: Radical Republicans cannot win outside of select constituencies. - Washington Times, 11/1/13
The election is next Tuesday. If you would like to get involved with GOTV efforts or donate to any of the top Democratic candidate, you can do so here:
http://terrymcauliffe.com/
http://www.herringforag.com/
http://www.northamforlg.com/
https://secure.actblue.com/...
